Jesús Sánchez, coordinator of the Cieza ecosocialists, points out that heat waves are now part of a new reality in our country, making it necessary to cool the streets and prepare the city for climate change.
That heat waves are part of a new reality, with hotter and drier summers, is so evident that cities in the northern part of the European Union, such as Berlin, have decided to take measures to address global warming. Thus, the German capital will plant thousands of trees by 2040 to have an average of one tree every 15 meters on its streets, wherever possible, and will develop projects to transform itself into a "sponge city" to collect and store rainwater.
In a press release, the coordinator of IU-Verdes in Cieza, Jesús Sánchez, warned that experts agree that by the end of the century the average temperature will increase by 3.8 degrees, and that "the increase in heat is a danger to vulnerable groups such as the elderly" and that "tree-lined streets can have a temperature up to four degrees lower than areas without vegetation."
Regarding Cieza, Jesús Sánchez, after pointing out the evidence that trees that "die" in the urban area are not replanted, has raised the need for the City Council to undertake a plan to plant more trees in the streets and squares in order to cool the areas of the city that are especially affected, those squares and spaces known as "hard green areas", where the paving or tiling increases the temperature and lacks trees as is the case of the Plaza Mayor.
According to the coordinator of the Cieza ecosocialists, "the question Cieza needs to address is how to manage its limited public space to make the city cooler and more livable," adding that "even if everything is done in time, the protection against the heat in the medium term will definitely be much worse than today, since a new tree has, compared to an old one, only one hundredth of the cooling capacity."
He also noted that Cieza has been changing with the pedestrianization of its city center, and increasingly more journeys are made on foot rather than by car. Therefore, planting trees to provide shade and help cool the streets is even more essential.
Jesús Sánchez concluded by asking Mayor Tomás Rubio, through the departments of urban planning, public works and the environment, to prepare a "study for the replacement and planting of new urban trees", as a preliminary step to the development of "a scheduled and financed tree planting plan so that Cieza is in a position to face the challenge of global warming indicated by all the studies".
Source: IU-Greens Cieza
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